C is for Chris's Autumn Parcel - Sports & Civilians

I was going to do sports and civilians as two separate posts, but realised most of them were sports (or pastimes) of one sort or another, and all the seated figures were in one shot which would have made a quick post with two Asian ladies, so they're all here!

Fussbal! There was something about pig's bladder kicking on Faceplant the other day, some Arabs were organising an end-of year kick-about or something, I believe the Argentines were playing dirty again, but still won? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

The three on the right are from board games of one type or another, but the chap on the left is one of those press-button collapse'a'toys (I've ever found a good generic term for them), where all the parts are threaded on wire, cotton button-thread (in this case) or fishing line, and held in tension by a spring in the drum base, so when you press the button, pushing the spring in, the fellow collapses like a 'red shirt' in an alien death ray! All plastic - brilliant thing!

Sorry for the upper shot, by the time I realised it was unusable they had gone to storage, so I used it! They are something we have seen before, in depth twice and in many mixed-posts like this one so you should be familiar with them, and with so many variations in size, colour and base type; something we will return to one day, these are mid-range (30-odd millimeters) and mid-quality.

Below them we have a rider (from an eraser go-cart/cartie type thing?) in eraser rubber, a wrestler in the style of Kinukiman/M.U.S.C.L.E., but not marked-up as one of them, so probably a gum-ball/capsule-machine knock-off, and, finally, an ice hockey player, similar to the pencil-top/key-ring footballers, but with no sign of a loop having been removed and no hole up his back-passage, more of a stand-alone desk-mascot.

The rear of that cart-rider, I wondered if he was a spaceman (he's quite similar to the Dinky Moon-buggy/Space Chariot crew, but he's more BMX'y with knee-pads and padded thigh-protectors, and I have half a feeling I've seen the cart somewhere, equally you might think pencil-top, but the larger hole is still a tad small, and I suspect locating-lugs on the go-cart?

The upper shot shows three skiers, all cake decorations, all Hong Kong, two polyethylene and one polystyrene (to the left) who's predictably lost his sticks, the first two are copies of the Britains Arctic Explorer, the one to the right a Gemodels skier I think?

The funny thing is I think the Britains 'Arctic' exploration set came out during the hype for an Antarctic expedition, the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955–1958, which my late mother helped with, back here in the UK, and I've found some of the paperwork in her estate, which at some point I'll do something with, nothing exciting; kit lists, typed databases of suppliers, formats of begging-letters, that sort of thing!

Below them are three of the cuckoo-clock/barometer figures, a pair and an odd, with a lovely Bavarian/Tyrolean dancer in Lederhosen. We have looked at the clock-figures before, but we will return to them at some point because several more have come in, and hopefully some will make-up more pairs? In the meantime this is a pretty good line-up!

A couple of these - like the go-carter - were borderline space figures until I looked closer; they all seem to be divers/marine explorers of one type or another, with a deep-sea diver to the left, two undersea vehicle crew to his right and the Nabisco (?) diver, much chewed in front. The chewed one is worth keeping for the colour and the fact that I think I only have the one other - bent legs - pose!

The deep sea diver looks like a pencil top, but the hole is too small again, so I expect he's from a similar novelty to the Nabisco one, which relies on air pressure/water density affecting a air-bubble in the hole, to make him go up and down in a bottle? But what do I know? He might be a nineteen-fifties fish-tank ornament from a weighted wreak or something!

The other yellow plastic chap is from one of the several rack-toy sea 'chariot' or James Bond villain-army type toy vehicles out there, I think/assume!

The 'might be' Hilco cake decoration hunters, from Britains Lilliput above, with two Hong Kong cyclists below, one almost a cracker-toy, but we've seen the packaging here I think, the other from one generation of Britains piracy or another. I picked up another, raising his arms as if crossing the finish-line, the other day, which I'm pretty sure goes with this chap (but they are already ensconced in two different places!), so it's a question of matching them with the right cycles in the future, and blogging them together with the doors and the little articulated one we saw here a while ago!

Seated figures, like paratroopers are standard contents of mixed lots, and highlights this time are the turquoise one (top, middle) who looks to have some age, and the metallic turquoise one below him which is also new to me, I think? Below them is a grey aircraft (?) crewman, in the style of a kit-figure, but possibly factory-painted and therefore from a more commercial toy/pre-built aeroplane model?

Lastly, but anything but leastly; two more of the KT/Shackman et al., figures, we saw these two in images from Brian Wagstaff which are on the 'World Dancers' page (link at the top of the page), so it's really nice to have them here now, a separate image has already been taken and added to the 'Commonwealth additions' folder!

When Brian W sent them I hoped they might be the sign of a larger set of ex-Commonwealth or Van Brode sculpts within the tourist/novelty pencil-sharpener line we've been looking at here, but these are the fourth/fifth to turn-up now, and the feeling is that they are just the pair, as in a 'Pair of Asian Dancers'

With a pair of Americans (Cowboy & Indian), pair of Germans/Tyrolean's (May Day/Dirndl dancers), four British touristy subjects (Policeman, Beefeater, Guardsman and Highland piper), and . . . I'm hopeful a Mountie might turn-up?

Thanks again to Chris for all these, which leaves us waiting for the 'other figures' post!